There are three solid project management tools available on the Internet today. They are Basecamp, Goplan, and activeCollab. All three allow you to create task lists, upload and share files, schedule milestones, and have online discussions.

Basecamp was created by 37Signals, a software and consulting company that also created Ruby on Rails. It allows you to keep track of task lists and assign tasks to other members of the team with a simple interface. When a task is done, the date of completion is recorded so you can factor that into milestone scheduling and monitor how quickly a team member starts and finishes work. Basecamp also goes further and allows team members to keep track of how many hours they have worked on a task, which lets the project manager make better estimates for milestone completion times.

The best feature of Basecamp is that it integrates into another 37Signals offering called Highrise which can group contacts with projects. This makes it easy to contact the customer or other project-related non-members.

Next is Goplan which allows management of multiple projects. When a project is created, features such as a blog or file-sharing can be enabled or disabled. This offers greater control and allows a project manager to remove unnecessary elements. Goplan also offers a real-time chat solution that works inside the web browser. Basecamp offers this as a separate product called Campfire.

Activecollab is available as open source software that can be setup on a local network but the version is older than the current one. The current Activecollab features mass emailing and email templates, along with support for Wiki pages where collaborative writing can take place and project details can be fleshed out (but this is not the same as a real online discussion feature).

Activecollab lets you send out reminders to team members to remind them of pending tasks or deadlines. An important feature is the time tracking where you can set mark down the time as billable, or billed and make sure payments are made (if you're a consulting company, this is especially important).

Both Goplan and Activecollab allow RSS feeds and email to be sent to team members to notify them of any changes.

All have monthly plans that range in price from Free to $24 per month (Basecamp) to $100 per month (Goplan) or $399 per year (Activecollab). Using a web-based project management tool helps a great deal, especially with team members that live quite a distance away from the rest of the team.

Learn more about this author, Rudolf Olah.
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